


The Return Of Bass and Roll

by Valentine20xx



Category: Rockman X | Mega Man X, Rockman | Mega Man Classic
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 11:16:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20096371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valentine20xx/pseuds/Valentine20xx
Summary: It is several decades after the Wily War ended, a time of relative peace.Shortly after a incident which nearly saw the collapse of the Repliforce, X and Zero find themselves coming face-to-face with part of the truth of the latter part of the 21st century...Bass and Roll survived.





	The Return Of Bass and Roll

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Kaze yo Tsutaete/When The Wind Blows © Capcom, and performed by Yoshino Aoki and Anna Ghoulston. All other copyrights as per first chapter.
> 
> Things like the English words for Roll's theme and the way Roll's broom works are references to the various incarnations Roll has had in spin-off media, and attempting to correlate them with reality.  
The 'lighting up' effect is almost impossible, outside of specially designed batons, and even then, the risks brought up are realistic. Both Roll and the broom are specially made for the purpose, Do not try to replicate the act at home.
> 
> I wish to note that I am mildly offended by the fact Capcom literally added Navigators as a full-on gameplay mechanic straight after the Repliforce storyline saw them killing off Iris, in a largely convoluted way that literally seemed to come out of nowhere, when they could easily have declared Double was canonically killed.  
When you consider Mega Man had Alia all the way through the latter half of the X series, The fact Zero notably only got one for a gameplay mechanic is what is even more offensive. Considering Zero has been brought back from worse, I made X's story canon.

"Look inside my heart, this is where it starts, Is it meant to be… Oh, I want to believe, Hold me closer now; Will you take a vow and don't ever let me go?" The mavericks heard, noticing what looked to be a girl with a broom mounted on her back, who was singing to herself as she skipped along, smiling about how good her life was. They smirked. This would be easy.  
"Hey, lady… You're in a lot of trouble right now..." The leader of the mavericks stated, "At least you brought your own broom. It'll save them time when they need to clean up your bo..."  
He stopped, blinking, as she smirked, deliberately drawing the broom off her back, the broom making a sound very similar to drawing a sword.  
"Yes, I am, aren't I?" She asked, twirling the broom in her fingers as if, even with the fact it's shaft seemed to be metal, it would do anything. The mavericks chuckled to herself. That would be threatening if it wasn't so comical. They then noticed her fingers twirling at an unnatural speed, the bristles actually starting to draw sparks from the ground. _Now_ it wasn't so comical.  
"What the heck?!" The leader of the mavericks declared. There were none of the usual tells of a reploid, her clothes even being loose and made of leather and cloth, instead of being armour.  
"I think you should REALLY reconsider your comment..." She stated, as the broom lit up with unnaturally blue flames, the bristles most likely holly fiber and clearly designed to do so, "I see some really stubborn stains right now just ASKING for me to wipe them off the face of the planet..."  
The mavericks swallowed as she struck, the broom now akin to a plasma weapon. This wasn't how things like this went! The poor, defenceless girls weren't meant to sweep _them_ out of existence… literally!

"This is Alia calling X, We have a maverick in-..." Alia began, stopping mid-announcement, "Erm, Cancel that alert. Some unknown girl, doesn't show up as a reploid on scans, just beat up several mavericks with a broom!"  
Doctor Cain raised an eyebrow at the odd comment, looking to just see a girl sweeping up some robot parts before dumping them in a nearby dumpster, before clipping it to a holster and hefting it onto her back.  
"Alia, go down to maintenance..." He grumbled, "I can't see any sign of Mavericks. Sheesh, Next, someone will be telling me that Zero got a sex change… Again."

Several hours later, he realized that the girl's broom had been visibly smoking, the robot parts were otherwise new, except for some scorch marks, plus he didn't recognise her at all. And, when he checked the sensors, she'd passed most of the tests, with the rest being inconclusive.  
"OK, It's not April, folks, so this is a serious question!" He asked the room, "Anyone know of how someone could beat up a bunch of mavericks with their..."  
"Plasma-Energy Broom..." Alia offered.  
"Plasma-Energy Broom?!" He called out, half-incredulously, looking towards Alia, "You serious?"  
Now he really wanted to know what she'd REALLY seen. When he saw the video she gave him, the only potential identification on the girl being the odd 'DRN-002' revealed on the back of her jacket for a split second, before the hood dropped back down, he had a worrying feeling that, somehow, most of those tests, created based on the data gleaned from his research while studying X, were somehow, completely and utterly, _wrong_.

X, Zero and Iris sat with Dr. Cain and Alia in one of the briefing rooms a short time later, Zero looking at her sceptically, rereading the report that had brought them into the briefing room. They'd only recently started using reploids for Navigator duty within Maverick Hunter Command. Iris was only here as a courtesy, since her actions during the Great Repliforce War had almost had her declared Maverick.  
"OK, Alia, have you been using faulty energy tanks?" Zero offered, "You're seriously telling us that some unknown girl used a 'plasma energy powered broom' to destroy a group of mavericks? How the hell do you get a plasma energy powered broom?"  
"All we know is that the lighting method involves creating enough friction to set the tips of the bristles alight, in an extreme form of what was used for cheerleaders in the time before robots to do flaming batons. Nowadays, we still get flaming batons, just not with cheerleaders," Alia stated, everyone else chuckling nervously, "We presume it only has a limited power supply for this role, and it seems to be engaged by twisting the handle, since we noticed the twitch of her hand doing so as she drew the broom out of it's holster,"  
"That's not what I was asking… But yes, That is an acceptable way to do one..." Zero stated, "Still, Only a reploid would be able to light it up, since the torque to actually set it alight would be murder on anything else's hands,"  
"The problem is that she didn't show up as a reploid… But here's the camera footage..." He stated, "All we know is that she was singing a song the computers can't identify, when she was accosted by some mavericks. She promptly lit the broom, with practised ease, literally wiped the floor with them, before dumping them in the trash. We were able to recover the remains, but it didn't help with analysis,"  
"That's conven..." X began, then blinked as he rewound the video, replaying it a few times to properly sample the audio, exclaiming, "Hey, I _know_ that song!"  
"Right, How the hell do you know it though?" Alia offered, "We cross-checked it against several centuries of music… It has not been officially released by any known vocalist..."  
"What if it was by an _unknown_ vocalist? I remember someone singing it, not as well..." X stated, playing the snatch of music again, humming to it a bit, "Yeah, definitely the same song, it was when I was being worked on by Dr. Light, It was part of the background noises of the lab… Sounds like the same girl too..."  
"OK, No wonder we couldn't recognise it, The singer..." Doctor Cain began, then double-blinked, "Wait a minute, The same girl?! In the time of Dr. Light?"  
"Hmm… It was during an early diagnostic period..." X began, as he called up the memory on the screens.

_X listened to the hum of the robotics, only for a tune to come to him, as well as the sounds of sweeping.  
_"_Roll, dear, will you please clean the basement later?" Dr. Right stated, "I'm working on something secret…"  
_"_Oh, I'm getting a little brother!" The girl, Roll, stated, "Anyway, I wanted to tell you something..."  
_"_Is it about why you're so happy?" Dr. Light asked.  
_"_Well, I was hoping to ask B-..." She began.  
_"_I hope that next word is not also the name of a fish..." He stated, sternly.  
_"_Maybe..." Roll started.  
_"_Tomorrow, I'm removing her EPU and rolling back the updates again..." Dr. Right was heard to mutter, "This has gone far enough… I knew installing one wouldn't work out, Why did I even make myself a daughter?"_

Doctor Cain frowned. Something seemed off about X's recollection. He then figured it out. The odd comment by Dr. Light! Why would he be annoyed about the name of a fish? Nothing he could recall had the name of a fish… There was a lot of musical terms, but only one distinct fish...  
"There's a lot of errors in there, X, suggesting the memory is suspect… For one, the only robot master even related to fish was Splash Woman, and he categorically cut her off over something beginning with B..." He began to summarize.  
"Doctor, I wish to correct you..." Alia stated, "Apparently, there is one musical term, which were commonly used for higher-tier robots, which is also a type of fish… Bass."  
"Oh yes…" Doctor Cain stated thoughtfully, "I thought he was called Forte..."  
"It was a fault with the records, one of multiple… He's interchangeably referred to as Bass or Forte, depending on the writer… Also classified as Super Wily Number 1, he was considered the ultimate in the Robot Master program instituted by Doctor Albert Wily, and was the only one not confirmed irrecoverably destroyed by Mega Man. In fact, he is actually recorded as having worked alongside Mega Man on a few occasions," She stated, pulling up a robot data file, the data partially garbled, "His death is unrecorded, due to either missing information or corrupted historical records, an unfortunate oversight,"  
"Umm… Can you locate Roll's file, and composite her appearance over the unknown girl?" Iris stated.  
"Roll was a cleaning and duty-of-care assistant robot created by Dr. Thomas Right, and was briefly used to test some of the technology he was using, until an unrecorded incident… Amending records..." Alia stated, "...was briefly used to test some of the technology he was using, until she showed romantic interest in Bass, something Dr. Right didn't approve of. She was recorded to have been upgraded once, being originally a 10-12 year old robot, in appearance, then later was upgraded to look to be in her mid-teens, which caused the above incident. Her death was recorded as being due to a plasma battery overload, but there was no wreckage found,"  
"You don't need to do the check, Clearly..." Doctor Cain began, for both Alia and Iris to wave him off.  
"It did the check automatically, Doctor… OK, Facial structure – Within tolerances, Weapons data – Matched. Oh my, she was known for using the broom even then. Vocal Pattern – Consistent Match," Alia half-dictated, before showing an image of what looked like the same girl when she was around 10, one when she was around 12, and one when she was in her mid-teens, then the 'unknown' girl, looking like her in her late teens, all of them suddenly realizing that, if you used natural progression, Roll was more than likely the 'unknown girl', "Temporary file opened for new reploid – DRN-002 ROLL."  
Dr. Cain rewound the video, for all of them to see, in a freeze-frame, the fact the jacket she was wearing was branded 'DRN-002', with a frame-by-frame analysis of later in the video allowing them to see the main image had the kanji for Wind beneath, with 'Roll' superimposed over it.  
"OK, She's a tribute piece done in the same style as Roll was..." Zero offered, Alia continuing sifting through the piles of mostly ancient data she was having to check to identify the unknown reploid.  
"_Error – Data Mismatch… DRN-002 is offline,_" The computer coughed up, "_No other matching Reploids within tolerances. Querying Master Database… GIGO Error. Please Restate Query,_"  
"GIGO?" Doctor Cain stated, "What's that error code?"  
"Garbage In, Garbage Out. It was an error code added to effectively tell a navigator the query is potentially erroneous," Iris stated, checking something, "Alia, could you remove the reference to the battery overload, and remove the death flag from her file? I think that's causing the conflict..."  
When Alia redid the query, searching for any robots or reploids done with the same body type as Roll, it eventually pinged and showed one single result. "_Only Roll on file – Original 21st Century Model. No other possible records._"  
"Wait… She faked her death?!" X stated, "How the hell did everyone miss that?"  
"I wish to note that the record did state one thing..." Alia stated, pointing to the last line in the original report... '_No wreckage was found'_.  
There was already a minor question on the authenticity of her death even by whoever wrote the data. There was then an alarm, distracting them from their musings. "_GIGO Error, GIGO Error. Unknown Reploid resembling SWN-001,_" The computer whined as it showed one of the outside cameras, "_Please double check security door area cameras..._"  
Alia checked her own screen, to see a young man had just somehow summoned a very familiar set of armour, and was busy attacking the security doors because, according to what he was yelling, 'What do you mean "Records Not Found!? I've seen calculators with more sense!"', not knowing the delay was due to the fact they weren't sure who he was, and told the security guard to open the doors urgently, the update was being sent now.  
"I guess we know what happened to Bass and Roll..." Doctor Cain offered, "Definitely a serious oversight… In both their cases. Now, X, Zero, please go meet with our guests, and apologize for the security error. Normally, our information is accurate, not faulty due to someone not checking they were shut off or destroyed, not expecting them to be put on ice for a few decades..."  
"It's not like that happened before..." Alia offered dryly, as she finished fixing up the computer's data. It was bad enough when Mavericks blew in the door, without ancient robots somehow coming back from the presumed dead doing it!

A short time later, X and Zero were literally buffing their armour to as close to new as they could. Well, they weren't just veterans of the current Maverick conflict, they were veterans of the Wily Wars, effectively being the only remaining members of either side of the conflict!  
"If either of them asks, the Maverick problem is completely and utterly Sigma's fault, and I didn't have any odd code installed in me." Zero muttered to X.  
"I know, I know. We've been using that line with dignitaries for months," X replied. Even if said dignitaries were from before they were activated...  
When they arrived at the bottom floor, however, they were greeted by Bass 'quietly' beating up on some security guards who were complaining about the wolf chewing on the door operator, while Roll was hitting a white and gold tiger over the head with her broom to get it to stop wanting to join in the fun, pausing only to look at the bent bristles due to what she was doing to them, before she twisted the handle counter-clockwise, causing the bristles to vanish, then twisted it back and they returned, no longer bent.  
"OK, There goes the dignified entrance." X muttered to himself, while Zero just looked dumbfounded, especially at the fact Roll actually had a mode for her broom purely for straightening the bristles.  
"Are we allowed to attack VIPs?" Zero thought to himself, "Please let us be able to according to the regulations."  
"AHEM… As a commander of this facility, I ASK YOU TO STOP THAT!" Zero roared, for Bass to look up at him, for a brief moment, look at Roll, look at him, then laugh at some private joke, before going back to demolishing the reception area. Zero then realised that the OTHER base-wide edict had not got to the ears of either of the veterans. _'Zero Is Not A Girl, __So Stop Calling Him One__!' _and had just probably compared Roll's hairstyle to Zero's, and then came to the expected result.  
"You will desist from this action!" X snapped, charging his Buster, for Roll to consider something, before she aimed her broom like a rifle, pointing it towards X, pressing a panel on it, for it to start to hover, then flew straight down the barrel of his Buster, the premature discharge sending him flying, the broom flying out of the other end, clearly made of stronger material than the now broken Buster, X wincing.  
"Sheesh, Now I know Dad's not changed the bore in years. Bass here is slightly wider so it can fire the broom back out safely, changed it myself..." She said, "But still, My broom is STILL an effective way to stop my relatives from shooting someone when they're busy, and the collision dampener still works properly… And no, Sonata, You cannot take off his other arm, he needs it,"  
Zero picked up his partner, while watching it go back to what was going on before they came down, except X was now nursing a broken arm.  
"OK, That was unexpected. How many Reploids can say they've been disarmed by the fact their primary weapon uses legacy parts?" X said, Bass stopping as the last guard collapsed, and looking at them both.  
"Sorry about that, I guess you and the blue blunder... God, has it been that long since I've been able to say that?..." Bass mused, Roll nodding, "Ahem, You're meant to be our escort. Thanks for the exercise… but you need a new door operating robot. The last one got eaten for being too g'damn slow,"  
He then paused, looking towards Roll. "Roll, Do you still have that old Mega Buster you, ahem, reconditioned for your own use?"  
Roll then tossed X a very old looking buster, with patches of pink paint on it, as well as Roll's name in a childish scrawl, both X and Zero noting the paint underneath was a bright blue. X test fired it, finding it still worked, despite the manufacturing date being long before their time.  
"Sorry about that. Needed to test the broom's jet engine anyway." Roll said, for Zero and X to eye her broom warily, "It's not the original one. Same plans, but I hand-built it once I woke up, to make sure all the parts worked. Sonata allowed me to test the instant repair function, and my little brother here allowed me to test the last thing,"  
"She's had a version of that broom ever since she was activated. The hover jet engine and plasma bristles were added to it over time. That's the fourth build revision it's had that I know of." Bass explained, "Originally, if she bent the bristles, she'd need to replace the entire module,"  
"I just have one question, It's been nagging at me since we, ahem, noticed you destroy some Mavericks earlier today… Why the hell do you have a plasma energy broom that also can use it's plasma bristles as a jet engine?" Zero asked, confused.  
"Just hitting some robots over the head with an ordinary broom does nothing. Charging the bristles means they have an extra jolt… and the jet engines are good for moving fast when you need to…" Roll said, as she put her broom down, before hitting a plate on the upper side, causing it to float in front of her. She stood on it similar to a surfboard, hitting a hidden sensor, which caused a set of straps to unfurl and fasten her front foot down, then she hit the same plate as she hit before, and literally broom-surfed for a moment, before tapping the sensor again, the front strap retreating, as she slipped into a riding posture to present a smaller profile as it rose to waist level and shot off into the compound.  
"She saw it once on a Halloween display, contemplated how to create thrust from the bristles..." Bass stated, "Anyway, I'm going to pick my girlfriend up before she causes too much trouble, You can follow if you want..."  
X and Zero both looked at each other. The fact he said 'girlfriend' suggested that both the files that had just been reopened would be getting a lot of revisions soon. And they didn't want to go into the fact the 'plasma energy broom' was a lot more than _just_ a broom.

"What the hell is someone doing riding a… oh wait, It's Roll…" Alia's voice said, "Next you'll… OK, We've got a white tiger loose in the base… and a purple wolf… and I'm not going to observe security footage any more if we don't have something SENSIBLE happen! Why is it that the really weird stuff happens on my shift?!"  
"X, Zero, Can you please explain the wolf and tiger?" Dr. Cain said over Zero's communicator, for Bass to say, "TREBLE BOOSTER!" as he ran towards Treble's location, and they watched as the wolf sprouted wings, and then reconfigured, opening up to let Bass dock with him, and he shot after Roll.  
"Erm…" Zero said, "Since when did reploids dock with mechanoloids? I thought that kind of thing only happened with things like Ride Armours, and they’re only temporary..."  
"Since when did young women ride brooms through the lower levels of the base followed by flying…" Alia said over X’s communicator, "This is so surreal… Do any reploids have illusion capabilities? Because the security footage is currently worthless in some areas, due to our visitors..."  
Bass soon returned, holding Roll in one hand, as well as the pieces of her broom. "You can rebuild it when you promise to not hot dog with the flight capabilities…" Bass growled, disengaging Treble from his docked configuration, "God, I sound like your father… And no jokes about my age."  
"But I'm older than you!" Roll pointed out, "And it took until you were built before I reached my teenage years!"  
"OK, What was that all about?" X and Zero said, for Roll to check some of the parts were able to be salvaged of her 'weapon'.  
"How about we try this… We're how things were done when you were a pipe dream… No fancy sabers, No looking like some kind of shonen hero, Dr. Right and Dr. Wily only did that once, and it was a disaster, No odd viruses causing robots to decide humans stink… Did Wily code that, or was it someone else?"  
"We are unsure of the source of the virus, but suspect it to be a reploid named Sigma, in order to allow the enlightened Reploids to inherit the Earth," Doctor Cain said, "Anyway, Why do you ask?"  
"It's Wily's shtick, reprogramming robots to destroy all humans…" Bass said, "Anyway, Let me guess… Destroy Mavericks, don't destroy your allies, and no letting my wolf eat the staff?"  
"Or my tiger." Roll added, for Bass to say, "Oh yes, and no letting Sonata do it either, thanks Roll."  
"If Roll can use her broom, Why does she need the tiger?" X asked.  
"Do you take a sword to a gun fight?" Bass asked, for Zero to look sheepish, for him to add, "Great, My old man was an idiot."  
"Oh, What makes you think that my preference for sabers was your father's fault?" Zero said, for Bass to grin evilly.  
"Because, SIS, he's your father too…" Bass declared. No-one noticed Roll pay Bass’s ‘fine’ for calling Zero a girl, by pressing her hand to the wall, before inputting something, for the fines system to accept several dozen more payments. They could afford it. Especially since X and Zero were partners. Even if Bass wasn't the heir of Dr. Wily, a quick poll of the records meant they could legitimately transfer all his money to them.


End file.
